Hillary Clinton ripped the Democratic Party’s data operation that she inherited as its 2016 presidential nominee, calling it “bankrupt.”

She added that it was at a “deficit” when compared to its GOP counterpart.

“You know, I set up my campaign and we have our own data operation,” she said.

“I get the nomination. So I’m now the nominee of the Democratic Party. I inherit nothing from the Democratic Party. I mean it was bankrupt. It was on the verge of insolvency. Its data was mediocre to poor, nonexistent, wrong. I had to inject money into it.”

Clinton made the remarks while being interviewed by tech journalists Kara Swisher and Walt Mossberg at Recode’s Code Conference, where she also called on Democratic donors to help “try and leapfrog over” the party’s “horrible data deficit.”

Speaking about the Republican operation, Clinton said it was far superior to what she had to work with.

“They basically said we will never be behind the Democrats again,” she said of the Republican National Committee following GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney’s 2012 defeat. “And they invested between 2012 and 2016 this $US100 million to build this data foundation.”

She added that Trump was “basically handed” a “tried and true effective” data operation once he became the nominee.